Activities of Elena KOUNTOURA related to 2020/2035(INL)
Plenary speeches (1)
Combating gender-based violence: cyberviolence (debate)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT with recommendations to the Commission on combating gender-based violence: cyberviolence
Amendments (38)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 1
Citation 1
— having regard to Articles 2 and 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union and Article 8 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU),
Amendment 3 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 4
Citation 4
— having regard to the Commission communication of 5 March 2020 entitled ‘A Union of Equality: Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025’, in particular its first target on freeing women and girls from violence and stereotypes,
Amendment 28 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8
Citation 8
— having regard to the provisions of the United Nations legal instruments in the area of human rights, in particular those concerning women’s and children's rights, and to other United Nations instruments on violence against women and children,
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 a (new)
Citation 8 a (new)
— having regard to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) of 20 November 1989,
Amendment 30 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 b (new)
Citation 8 b (new)
— having regard to General Comment No 13 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child of 18 April 2011 on the right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence,
Amendment 31 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 c (new)
Citation 8 c (new)
— having regard to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) adopted on 18 December 1979,
Amendment 32 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 d (new)
Citation 8 d (new)
— having regard to General recommendation No. 35 on gender-based violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19 of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee),
Amendment 33 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 e (new)
Citation 8 e (new)
— having regard to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which entered into force on 1 January 2016, and, in particular, to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality,
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 f (new)
Citation 8 f (new)
— having regard to the Commission proposal of 4 March 2016for a Council decision on the conclusion, by the European Union, of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (COM(2016)0109),
Amendment 35 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 8 g (new)
Citation 8 g (new)
— having regard to the United Nations Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women of 20 December 1993
Amendment 40 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 12 a (new)
Citation 12 a (new)
— having regard to the report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA)of 3 March 2014 entitled ‘Violence against women: an EU-wide survey’,
Amendment 62 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas gender equality is a fundamental value and a core objective of the EU, and should be reflected in all EU policies; whereas the right to equal treatment and non-discrimination is a fundamental right enshrined in the Treaties1a and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights1b; whereas the first objective of the Union’s Gender Equality Strategy 2020- 2025 focuses on ending gender-based violence and describes it as ‘one of our societies’ biggest challenges’; , as it remains widespread and affects women at all levels of society, regardless of age, education, income, social background or country of origin or residence, and it is one of the most serious obstacles to achieving gender equality; _________________ 1aArticle 2 and Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union and Articles 8, 10, 19 and 157 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union 1b Articles 21 and 23 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights
Amendment 69 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas violence against women and other forms of gender-based violence are widespread in the Union and are to be understood as an extreme form of discrimination; whereas gender-based violence is rooted in the unequal distribution of power between women and men, in sexism and gender stereotypes against women and a violation of human rights entrenched in gender inequality, which they contribute to perpetuate and reinforce; whereas gender-based violence is rooted in the unequal distribution of power between women and men, in established patriarchal structures and practices, in sexism and gender stereotypes on the roles and capabilities of women and men, which have led to domination over and discrimination against women by men;
Amendment 83 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas violence against women and gender-based violence present different but not mutually exclusive forms and manifestations; whereas those different forms ofgender-based cyber violence exists as an interaction between cyber violence and gender based violence and should be understood as the continuation and extension of offline gender-based violence in the online environment; whereas online violence areis often interlinked and inseparable from offline violence because they can precede, accompany or continue ithem;
Amendment 95 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas existing forms of gender- based cyber violence are constantly evolving and new forms are emerging due to the rapid development and deployment of digital technologies and applications; whereas cyber harassment, cyber stalking, cyber bullying, trolling, online hate speech, flaming, doxxing and, image- based sexual abuse are among the most common types of gender-based cyber, cyber trafficking, sexual exploitation, identity theft, dead-naming, grooming, deepfakes, fakeporn, revenge porn, defamation, humiliation, attacks on freedom of expression, are among the most common types of gender-based cyberviolence; whereas gender-based cyber violence can be perpetrated using a range of online communication channels and tools, including social media, web content, discussion sites, dating websites, comment sections, and gaming chat rooms; whereas many types of gender- based cyber violence can be perpetrated with far greater ease and scale than physical forms of gender-based violence; whereas some Member States have adopted specific legislation oncriminalising some of those particular forms only; whereas the Member States have adopted divergent legislative approaches to combating gender-based cyber violence and do not cover all aspects of the problem;
Amendment 107 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D a (new)
Recital D a (new)
D a. whereas the existing EU legislation does not provide the mechanisms needed to address gender- based cyber violence adequately; whereas there is no common understanding of what cyber violence is or what gender- based cyber violence entails for the victims or society as a whole; whereas the absence of a harmonised definition of gender-based cyber violence in the EU leads to significantly differences on the extent to which Member States combat and prevent gender-based cyber violence, leaving wide disparities and fragmentation in protection among Member States, despite the cross-border nature of the violence;
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D b (new)
Recital D b (new)
D b. whereas AI applications can be used to generate fake content, such as ‘deepfakes’, which are growing exponentially and constitute an imminent threat to human rights and democracy; whereas the misuse of deepfakes can be particularly dangerous as it may be difficult for citizens to assess the credibility of such audiovisual content and material; whereas deepfake technology is often being used to create pornography without consent; whereas image-based sexual abuse such as fake- porn photos and videos are often being weaponized to harass and humiliate women and whereas this has severe impact on their sexual, physical and psychological health as well as on their economic and social well-being;
Amendment 111 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D c (new)
Recital D c (new)
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D d (new)
Recital D d (new)
D d. whereas technology can also facilitate intimate partner violence and domestic violence; whereas men often use, among others, phones and social networks to control, harass, humiliate and exercise other forms of violence against their partners or ex-partners; whereas revenge porn is a growing form of intimate partner violence, and the number of websites that disseminate such content is also on the increase; whereas the consequences of revenge porn can be sexual, (as the sexual encounter was recorded and/or disseminated without consent), psychological (for the impact of having their private life become public), and economic (as the image-based sexual abuse may potentially compromise the present and future professional life of victims); whereas a significant number of victims of revenge porn commit suicide;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D e (new)
Recital D e (new)
D e. whereas major porn websites are currently on the spotlight due to several cases of illegal content that they disseminate and benefit from economically, including videos of trafficked women and children, videos of raped and abused women, secretly filmed videos, and videos shared without the consent of the women who were recorded; whereas the dissemination of private content and particularly of sexual assaults online brings an additional traumatic element to the violence, often with dramatic consequences, including suicide;
Amendment 114 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital E
Recital E
E. whereas, in order to address the issue of the eradication of gender-based violence, including of gender-based cyber violence it is necessary to rely on consistent and comparable administrative data, based on a robust and coordinated framework of data collection; whereas the Istanbul Convention and the Victims’ Rights Directive require Member States to report statistical data and to produce gender-disaggregated data; whereas, despite a growing awareness of the phenomenon of gender- based cyberviolence, the lack of collection of exhaustive and recentharmonised definition and of collection of recent comprehensive, comparable and gender- disaggregated data and the underreporting of cases of gender-based cyberviolence prevents an accurate assessment of its prevalence; whereas without an accurate view of the prevalence of gender-based cyber violence, and its several forms, the gravity of the problem remains significantly unquantified and unmapped and is consistently underestimated; whereas available studies show that cyberviolence disproportionately affects women and girls, both in terms of the extent and types of harmful activities 1a; whereas the survey by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) on violence against women indicates that one in ten women have already experienced a form of cyber violence since the age of 15; whereas the European added value assessment on gender-based cyberviolence estimates that between 4 and 7% of women in the Union have experienced cyber harassment during the past 12 months, while between 1 and 3% have experienced cyber stalking; whereas there is a need to adequately assess the impact of cyberviolence on victims, and to understand the mechanisms that allow men to perpetrate this form of gender-based violence, in order to ensure redress, accountability and prevention; _________________ 1aReport of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women”, Human Rights Council, 2018
Amendment 140 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital G
Recital G
G. whereas some women, such as politicians, women in public positions, journalists, bloggers and, human rights defenders, and other public figures are particularly impacted by gender-based cyberviolence, and whereas this is causing not only reputational damage, psychological harm and suffering to them but also deterring them from participating digitallcan lead to disruptions to a victim’s living situation, invasions of privacy, silencing or withdrawal from the online environment, and damage to personal relationships deterring them from participating digitally in political, social and cultural life; whereas even if the victims do not completely withdraw from social media and public appearances, they may opt to keep a low profile to avoid drawing any attention, and thereby further violence and this can remove female voices and opinions and worsen an already present gender inequality in political, social and cultural life;
Amendment 151 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas gender-based cyberviolence impacts on mental, sexual, physical and psychological health, on the full exercise of fundamental rights and even on democracy, and has dire consequences on society, including an negative economic impact; , such as withdrawal from the public debate, costs incurred for seeking legal and healthcare assistance, labour market impacts in terms of lower presence at work, risks of job loss or lower productivity and reduced quality of life due to poor mental health itself; whereas some of these impacts compound other forms of discrimination faced by women exacerbating existing discriminations and inequalities;
Amendment 157 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H a (new)
Recital H a (new)
H a. whereas according to the Council of Europe half of the world’s students aged 13-15 have experienced violence in and around school, and nearly one in three have experienced bullying or been involved in fights; whereas at least 12.5% of school bullying cases are done online; whereas young people are now increasingly connected to social networks at an earlier age; whereas these forms of violence reinforce the weight of social inequalities because it is often the most disadvantaged young people who are the target; whereas according to UNICEF, girls are twice as harassed as boys;
Amendment 165 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Underlines that gender-based cyberviolence is a continuum of gender- based violence offline and that no policy alternative will be effective unless it takes this reality into consideration; stresses that the existing EU legislation does not provide the mechanisms needed to address gender-based cyber violence adequately; regrets that the absence of a harmonised definition of gender-based cyber violence in the EU leads to significantly differences on the extent to which Member States tackle and prevent gender- based cyber violence, leaving wide disparities in protection, support and compensation of the victims among Member States; underlines that a harmonised definition of gender-based cyberviolence would facilitate the work of analysing the various forms of cyberviolence and counteracting the phenomenon; stresses that the concept of cyber violence should not be limited to the use of computer systems, but should remain broad, thereby covering the use of ICT to cause, facilitate or threaten violence against individuals; recalls that the root causes of all types of gender- based violence, including gender-based cyberviolence are the same and therefore it's important to ensure that laws and policies address them holistically;
Amendment 179 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Welcomes the Union’s Gender Equality Strategy 2020-2025 put forward by the Commission as a tool to combat violence against women and gender-based violence and to tackle the root causes of it; underlines that gender-based cyberviolence is deeply rooted in power dynamics, economic imbalances and patriarchal attitudes that foster the idea of women’s inferiority to men; calls on the Member States to address its root causes and to tackle established attitudes, gender roles and stereotypes that make violence against women acceptable; calls on the Commission to develop harmonized legal definitions of gender-based cyberviolence; calls on the Commission to ensure cyberviolence is also addressed, including the forms it takes through the sex industry; calls on the Commission and on the Member States to put an end to the pornography industry built based on sex trafficking, rape and other forms of assault and abuse of women and children; calls on the Commission and Member States to include misogyny in the forms of hate speech, and misogynistic assaults in hate crimes;
Amendment 187 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Stresses that the COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with an exponential increased in the risk of domestic violence and abuse because victims are forced to spend more time with perpetrators and they tend to be more isolated from support networksprevalence and intensity of cases of domestic violence and abuse, including gender-based cyberviolence, as even more of people's social lives have shifted online and because victims are forced to spend more time with perpetrators and they tend to be more isolated from support networks; stresses that the alarming upsurge of the “shadow pandemic” made it difficult for women to access effective protection, support services and justice, and revealed insufficient support resources and structures, leaving many of them without adequate and timely protection; calls on the Commission to facilitate reporting channels and to develop an EU protocol on violence against women in times of crisis and emergency to prevent violence against women; calls on Member States to increase the assistance they offer through shelters, helplines and support services to protect victims and facilitate the reporting of gender-based violence, as well as redress;
Amendment 199 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Underlines the transnational nature of gender-based cyberviolence, considering the cross-border dimension of the use of ICT; calls for the EU institutions, agencies and bodies, as well as the Member States and their law enforcement agencies, to cooperate and take concrete steps to coordinate their actions to counter the use of ICT to commit crimes, including online sexual harassment and trafficking in human beings for the purpose of sexual exploitation;
Amendment 211 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Calls on the Member States to promote awareness raising, to implement national criminal justice laws and specific policies and programmes to prevent gender-based cyberviolence and to fight against impunity for those who commit such acts; recalls that the Budapest, Lanzarote and Istanbul Conventions require the criminalisation of specific conduct that includes or entails violence against women and children, such as gender based cyberviolence; calls on the Commission and the Member States to increase their funds devoted to raising awareness campaigns and combat gender- based violence and gender stereotypes, educate men and boys in how to behave towards women and girls online, to make a responsible and respectful use of technology, and ensure women’s continued freedom of expression and meaningful participation in public discourse; calls for funds and campaigns to raise awareness of women and girls on how to secure their accounts and communication, to warn them about potential harassers and aggressors, and to inform them about their rights and about how to seek help in case of an incident; considers, in addition, that companies and developers should address gender-based online violence and abuse on their infrastructures through effective reporting and suspension mechanisms; underlines that due to anonymity granted by the cyber sphere, ensuring accountability of perpetrators of cyberviolence against women is particularly difficult; calls on the Member States to invest the necessary resources and to implement efficient measures that will ensure accountability of perpetrators of cyberviolence against women; calls on the Commission to analyse the use of advertisements or online postings to lure women into potentially harmful situations such as getting involved in the sex industry;
Amendment 222 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 5 a (new)
Paragraph 5 a (new)
5 a. Calls on the member States to provide mandatory and continuous capacity building, education and training for all relevant professionals, including but not limited to law-enforcement professionals, criminal justice actors, members of the judiciary, health-care professionals, asylum officials, social service professionals and education professionals, to equip them with knowledge on gender-based cyberviolence, responding to women and girls as victims without causing secondary victimisation and re-traumatisation, and, where relevant, information on existing legal frameworks and international cooperation mechanisms relating to the gender-based cyberviolence as well as on the gathering and securing of electronic evidence; calls for the development of training tools for the police force, the justice system and the information and communication technology sector to empower law enforcement agencies to effectively investigate and prosecute malicious attackers and support the victims of gender-based cyberviolence;
Amendment 232 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Urges the Commission and the Member States to establish a reliable system for regularly collecting statistical harmonised, disaggregated and comparable EU-wide data on gender-based violence, including cyberviolence making full use of the capacity and expertise of EIGE, Eurostat, Europol and ENISA; recommends that these datasets should be gathered and analysed through an intersectional lens and should include the profiles of perpetrators, their relationship with the victim, the means of perpetrations, the number of reported cases, the number of prosecuted cases and the number of condemnations, disaggregated by the sex/identified gender and age of the victim; notes the Commission’s commitment to carry out a new EU survey on gender-based violence with results to be presented in 2023;
Amendment 241 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 6 a (new)
Paragraph 6 a (new)
6 a. Urges the Commission and the Member States to provide appropriate funding for the development of AI solutions that prevent and combat several forms of gender-based cyber violence; calls on the Commission to set up adequate transparency obligations for AI applications that generate or manipulate audiovisual content (i.e. deepfakes), and disclose when content has been artificially altered;
Amendment 243 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Notes that inter alia stress, concentration problems, anxiety, panic attacks, low self- esteem, depression, post- traumatic stress disorder, lack of trust and lack of sense of control, caused by cyberviolence, can have an impact on mental health; self-harm and suicidal ideation can be some of the impacts on mental health caused by cyberviolence; stresses that advances in ICT technology can facilitate abusers in perpetrating psychological violence; notes that a key distinction between offline and online gender-based cyber violence is that it is significantly more difficult to permanently remove abusive or triggering content from the Internet, which obliges the survivor to re-experience their victimisation all over again and this can exacerbate the psychological impacts of these forms of violence, such as flashbacks of the incident and/or perpetrator, as well as increase the victim’s isolation period; stresses that this can make it harder for victims to move on and escape the situation; notes that while the immediate impact of gender-based cyber violence may differ, the longer-term impacts are ultimately similar; underlines that the impacts of gender-based cyber violence on victims includes but are not limited to reputational damage, mental illness, physical and medical issues, disruptions to a victim’s living situation, invasions of privacy, silencing or withdrawal from the online environment, and damage to personal relationships;
Amendment 254 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Underlines that gender-based cyberviolence generates negative psychological, social and economic consequences that mainly affect women and girls;
Amendment 279 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Recalls that gender stereotypes are at the core of gender discrimination and are one of the main barriers to the entry of women and girls in the ICT and digital fields; stresses the need to tackle the gender gap in the ICT sector through education, awareness-raising campaignrecognizes that gender stereotyping, cultural discouragement and the lack of awareness and promotion of female role models hinders and negatively affects girls' and women´s opportunities in ICT sector and leads to discrimination and fewer opportunities for women in the labour market; stresses that the primary objective should be to remove all the socio-cultural, psychological and pedagogical barriers that restrict women' s interests, preferences, and choices; encourages Member States to promote women's involvement in ICT sector and career by providing sufficient incentives in their respective national or regional action plans or policies on gender; stresses the need to tackle the gender gap in the ICT sector through education, awareness-raising campaigns, better work- life balance, equal opportunities, healthy and safe working and studying environments for women and girls, mandatory pay transparency policies, zero tolerance policies and measures for sexual harassment, the promotion of the visibility of female role models and the promotion of the representation of women in the sector;
Amendment 298 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Underlines the need to protect, support and ensure reparation for victims of gender-based cyberviolence; calls on the Member States to ensure adequate support services, including legal and psychological counselling, accessible to all victims of gender-based cyberviolence, including such violence perpetrated in the context of domestic violence, by equipping existing women’s specialist support services and other services with experience in this sector with the financial and human resources to offer holistic services, including legal and technical advice on the removal of harmful online content;
Amendment 316 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Recalls that the Council is to urgently conclude the Union’s ratification of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the ‘Istanbul Convention’) on the basis of a broad accession without any limitations, and to advocate for its ratification, swift and proper implementation, and enforcement by all Member States; deplores the fact that the Convention has not been ratified by the European Union yet; regrets that to this date only 21 EU Member States have ratified it; underlines that the Istanbul Convention is the most comprehensive international treaty addressing the root causes of gender- based violence in all its forms; highlights that this call does not detract from the call to adopt a Union legal act on combating gender-based violence but, rather, complements it; strongly condemns all attempts to discredit the Istanbul Convention and condemns the attempts at setting back progresses made in the fight against gender-based violence that are going on in some Member states; notes with great concern that the effective implementation of the Convention is still patchy across EU; highlights that this call does not detract from the call to adopt a Union legal act on combating gender-based violence but, rather, complements it; recalls that such new legislative measures should in any case be in line with the rights, obligations and objectives of the Istanbul Convention; recommends that the Istanbul Convention should be seen as a minimum standard and aspire to make further progress to eradicate gender- based and domestic violence;
Amendment 322 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Strongly reaffirms its commitment, as it has previously expressed, to tackle gender-based violence and to the need to have a comprehensive directive covering all its forms and containing uniform standards and due diligence obligation to collect data, to prevent, to investigate, to protect the victims and the witnesses, and to prosecute and punish the perpetrators as the best way to put an end to gender- based violence;